Some Perspective You May Not Have Heard

On Sunday John Fund posted an article at the National Review that provides a slightly different perspective on the murders in Connecticut on Friday. The first thing Mr. Fund points out is that mass murders are not becoming more frequent–their frequency has actually declined.

The article reports:

In fact, the high point for mass killings in the U.S. was 1929, according to criminologist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century.

The chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about what they are for being struck by lightning.

Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.

Obviously the statistics do not mask the horror of what happened, but we do need to put this in perspective. I don’t think it helps that every newscast has at least three stories about the shooting or that a lot of the information being put out is false.

Mr. Fund mentions the two aspects of this tragedy that are not being widely discussed–how we treat the mentally ill and the fallacy of creating gun-free zones.

Mental illness has played a major role in many of these shootings. The article reports:

First, the mental-health issue. A lengthy study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least 38 of the 61 mass shooters in the past three decades “displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.” New York Times columnist David Brooks and Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson have both suggested that the ACLU-inspired laws that make it so difficult to intervene and identify potentially dangerous people should be loosened. “Will we address mental-health and educational-privacy laws, which instill fear of legal liability for reporting potentially violent mentally ill people to law enforcement?” asks Professor Jacobson. “I doubt it.”

There will always be a danger of someone being wrongly committed to a mental institution, and there will always be an issue about how institutions treat the mentally ill and how much room is available at these institutions. A blog called “The Anarchist Soccer Mom” posted an article on Friday entitled, “Thinking the Unthinkable.” The writer states her challenges and fears in dealing with her own teenage son who has threatened to take her life and his own. She states that she is unable to have him committed until he actually follows through on his threat.

The article also reports on the failure of gun-free zones:

Gun-free zones have been the most popular response to previous mass killings. But many law-enforcement officials say they are actually counterproductive. “Guns are already banned in schools. That is why the shootings happen in schools. A school is a ‘helpless-victim zone,’” says Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff. “Preventing any adult at a school from having access to a firearm eliminates any chance the killer can be stopped in time to prevent a rampage,” Jim Kouri, the public-information officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told me earlier this year at the time of the Aurora, Colo., Batman-movie shooting. Indeed, there have been many instances — from the high-school shooting by Luke Woodham in Mississippi, to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo. — where a killer has been stopped after someone got a gun from a parked car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter.

Please read the entire National Review article by John Fund. The article cites many of the facts that the media seems to have ignored.

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Does The Supreme Judicial Court In Massachusetts Care About The Law ?

Yesterday Legal Insurrection posted a copy of a letter sent to the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court regarding recent statements by Michael Fredrickson, the General Counsel of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers. Within a few hours after William Jacobson reported on his website, Legal Insurrection, that Elizabeth Warren was practicing law without a license, Mr. Fredrickson gave an interview defending Elizabeth Warren.

The article reports:

That Mass Lawyers Weekly interview has been the basis for the defense of Warren.  After all, if the General Counsel of the entity with quasi-regulatory authority publicly announced a conclusion, why treat the issue seriously?  Even The Boston Globe has a similar quote from Fredrickson today, and uses that quote to dismiss the issue out of hand.

Yet the issue is serious, as even people who did not initially agree with me have acknowledged.

Fredrickson effectively quashed the public discussion by virtue of his title and position.

Fredrickson later admitted, however, that he was not speaking on behalf of the BBO and was not reaching any conclusions as to Warren individually because he knew so little about her practice….

This is the press release from the Republican Party, including the letter to Chief Justice Ireland:

Boston- Today, MassGOP Chairman Bob Maginn sent the following letter to the Honorable Chief Justice Roderick L. Ireland of the Supreme Judicial Court regarding recent comments made by Board of Bar Overseers General Counsel, Michael Fredrickson. The letter raises concerns about Mr. Fredrickson’s public comments that “appear to advance a partisan agenda that is inconsistent with any agency within the judicial branch.”

Supreme Judicial Court
The Honorable Roderick L. Ireland
John Adams Courthouse
One Pemberton Square, Suite 2500
Boston, MA 02108

October 8, 2012

RE: Michael Fredrickson

Dear Chief Justice Ireland:

I am writing to express concern that the Board of Bar Overseers General Counsel Michael Fredrickson has made public comments without the benefit of any investigation or due process regarding legality of U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s practice of law from her office in Cambridge without admission to the Massachusetts bar. Mindful that Attorney Fredrickson has a fine reputation as General Counsel to the Board of Bar Overseers (“BBO”), a fictional writer, and law professor, I am nonetheless compelled to make your office aware of his recent public statements, as follows:

• “Michael Fredrickson, general counsel for the BBO, says he does not believe a law professor would be considered to have ‘a continuous presence’ or ‘an office practicing law.’ ‘If they actually practice here – as some part-time law professors at some of the smaller schools do – they might,’ Fredrickson says. ‘But being a professor at one of the large schools, their office is a professor’s office, and the fact that they tend to dabble in the practice of law doesn’t run afoul of our rule. I don’t think Elizabeth Warren would fall within that, such that she would have to register here.’ (Lisa Keen, “Warren law license matter called non-issue,” Mass Lawyers Weekly, 9/24/12).

• “Fredrickson stated that he did not purport to determine whether Warren violated the applicable law. He said he was just ‘speaking hypothetically’ and not specifically as to Warren because ‘I know so little about Elizabeth Warren and her practice.’” (http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/09/no-mass-board-of-bar-overseers-has-not-exonerated-elizabeth-warren/)

• “Fredrickson confirmed that he did make the comments attributed to him in MLW, but also made clear that he was not speaking on behalf of the BBO. Fredrickson said it was his ‘personal reading’ of the law, and that he was ‘not speaking on behalf of the Board of Bar Overseers.’” (http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/09/no-mass-board-of-bar-overseers-has-not-exonerated-elizabeth-warren/)

Taking into consideration the honored tradition of the Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) and the BBO with regard to not politicizing the carrying out of your respective responsibilities, Mr. Fredrickson’s public comments appear to advance a partisan agenda that is inconsistent with any agency within the judicial branch. Foremost, Mr. Fredrickson’s statements arrived in the public dialogue devoid of any formal investigation, fact finding, or proper evaluation. Further, upon consultation with counsel, I understand Mr. Fredrickson’s conclusions to be incorrect. As a threshold, the part-time practice of law is not any less the practice of law; and, without an appropriate exception to the Rules of Professional Conduct, a license is required for the practice of law in the Commonwealth. Lastly, while I notice Mr. Fredrickson’s repackaged his statements as those of his own and not of the BBO they still may be attributable as opinions of the SJC and the BBO without a formal correction.

In view of the aforementioned, it may be appropriate for the SJC or the BBO to issue a statement recognizing the lack of authority and enforceability of Mr. Fredrickson’s personal views. Accordingly, with this correspondence, I deferentially request that the SJC issue a statement or direct the BBO to issue a statement to that effect.

Respectfully,

Bob Maginn

cc:
Susan Mellen, Supreme Judicial Court, Clerk
Christine P. Burak, Legal Counsel to the Chief Justice
Michael Fredrickson, Board of Bar Overseers, General Counsel
David S. Mackey, Board of Bar Overseers, Chair

This is an issue that needs to be investigated.

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Should Political Candidates Be Held To The Same Laws As The Rest Of Us ?

Yesterday a website called Legal Insurrection posted an article about the law practice of U. S. Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren.

William A. Jacobson, the writer of the article, reports:

I confirmed with the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers by telephone that Warren never has been admitted to practice in Massachusetts.  I had two conversations with the person responsible for verifying attorney status.  In the first conversation the person indicated she did not see any entry for Warren in the computer database, but she wanted to double check.  I spoke with her again several hours later, and she indicated she had checked their files and also had spoken with another person in the office, and there was no record of Warren ever having been admitted to practice in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, the article also states:

Regardless of where she was admitted, Warren consistently since the late 1990s has held herself out as having her professional address for legal representation at her Harvard Law School office in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Warren was listed as “Of Counsel” on Travelers’ Supreme Court Brief, listing her Harvard Law School office as her office address:

I called a lawyer I know and asked if this was normal practice. I was informed that the average lawyer would be disbarred (or worse) for practicing law in Massachusetts without having been admitted to the bar in Massachusetts.

The article further states:

There is no requirement that a law teacher be licensed to practice law in Massachusetts in order to teach or publish on topics related to law.  In fact, a law teacher need not even be a lawyer.  Once that law teacher starts acting a lawyer, however, the normal licensing rules apply.

The question becomes whether Warren was “practicing law” at her Cambridge address, or doing something that does not constitute the practice of law.

A person practicing law in Massachusetts needs to be licensed to do so.  Superadio Ltd. Partnership v. Winstar Radio Productions, LLC, 446 Mass. 330, 334, 844 N.E.2d 246, 250 (Mass. 2006)(“As a general proposition, an attorney practicing law in Massachusetts must be licensed, or authorized, to practice law here”).

As a lawyer, she would have known that she had to be admitted to the bar in Massachusetts to practice law in Massachusetts.

The article concludes:

I detail above the facts and law which lead me to the conclusion that Warren has practiced law in Massachusetts without a license in violation of Massachusetts law for well over a decade.

I expect Warren will disagree, and I welcome a discussion of the facts and the law.

I doubt that will happen.  Instead, and similar to how her campaign tried to demonize me and the Cherokee women who questioned her supposed Native American ancestry, I expect Warren’s campaign will attempt to deflect these serious issues by attacking the messenger.

Warren should disclose the full scope of her private law practice.  Perhaps there are facts not publicly available which will demonstrate that Warren was not engaged in the practice of law in Massachusetts when she earned $212,000 from Travelers, plus other fees from others who sought out her legal expertise dating back to the 1990s.

The voters of Massachusetts are entitled to know, before they vote, whether one of the candidates for Senate has not been following the rules which apply to everyone else.

Massachusetts voters have a choice in November between a man who legally practiced law in this state for a number of years and a lady who seems to have very little regard for the law.

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